Last reflections on the Tour de France
Okay, so now that the Tour de France is over I can actually allow this blog to return to my task list. Four plus hours a day of cycling kind of blows my productivity thus, alas, piffly blog entries moved to the backburner.Final thoughts on this year,s three-week spectacle through France. The doping scandal took its toll knocking a yellow jersey winner and the projected winner on the road out of contention. Not because he tested positive but because he was unavailable for about six weeks to randomly submit to on demand urine samples which is a condition of the powers that be that oversee the sport of professional cycling. He said he was in Mexico with his Mexican national wife. A sports journalist swears he saw him training in the mountains of Italy. Someone's lying so Patrick Rassmussen was considered guilty until proven innocent and bounced from the tour by his team right after the Danish Cycling Federation dropped him from the national team. That's how bad the sport has become. The top contenders never made it out of the starting gate because they supposedly failed pre-race tests. Another top rider who was putting out miracle like performances was accused of an illegal transfusion of someone elses oxygenated blood and was kicked off the tour. Next year, the French are looking to make changes to the few teams that are invited every year, hinting that half of the teams will be French amateurs.
My take? I think France can't face the fact that they are inferior performers in the sport so they've launched a witch hunt against the world's top cyclists to better the odds that a Frenchman will climb onto the top slot of the podium, something which hasn't happened since 1985. The next year, American Greg Lemond took the Yellow Jersey which has resided on American shoulders for 11 of the last 23 years with brief stops on Irish, German, Italian, Danish and Spanish riders for the other 12. All their machinations this year didn't work as a Spaniard, Australian and American held the top three places on the podium, two of which rode for America's Discovery Channel Team.
But let's just say that every single doping allegation is true. In my view, who cares? Sports are no longer about the love of competition but about money. Billions of dollars per year are paid out in salaries and endorsements and tens of billions are raked in by the owners of teams and sports facilities. The money only happens because people are willing to pay ridiculous fees for memorabilia and tickets just to feel connected to the victories of the athletes they cheer. No one pays to see a good effort, they demand victory and if you can't win, you're toast no matter how gifted of an athlete you may be. So, just like many scholars cheat to get grades that lead to better jobs, companies cheat the balance sheet to make their stocks look more profitable, job seekers fudge their resumes to appear more trained and better educated then they actually are in order to compete for postions and salaries, so, too. do athletes cheat. I am not condoning or justifying it. I think it is sympomatic of the "winner" obsession that dominates western culture. If you aren't a champion, you are a loser. If you ain't getting paid, you're a bitch. Who cares about hard work and competency anymore? Those are such quaint and passe notions of a bygone era when hard work counted for something. It's ratings, album sales, job evaluations, points per game, a nation's material versus people value or one's willingness to breathe deep the vapors of the ass above you that matters. Until we change our priorities out here in the civilzed world, how can we ever expect anyone to just do the best they can do and be able to make a living doing it? This is the price we pay for hyper-competitiveness and every single one of us share the blame in creating this culture of cheating.
Right now, I have many, many opportunities before me. I am doing something completely out of character and against many previous protestations... mornings at a country station. Yup! Dave's the morning guy for a country station in the south. I'm really just doing it as a favor for the station owners until they can bring on someone fulltime but it is indeed strange to wake every morning at 3:30 to get geared up for the "Dixie Breakfast Table." Yeah, I know.
The nice thing about this gig is that allows me to help out a charity that is near and dear to my heart, http://www.projectrwanda.org . Read about it. It's pretty amazing. Coffee and bicycles? Now how could I say no to being their media director? I am also doing some preliminary consulting for a coffee chain and the talk network I wrote about earlier so, as you can imagine, life is quite hectic but I'm loving every minute of it.
The girls are well and staying busy. Abi and Elea start back to school next month and Abi is almost finished with her 240 country reports. If you haven't checked out her project lately, go the our website, http://www.paxgaea.com . Pen's consulting the shirt company that she used to work at before we left for Mexico. The book is still out there making the rounds to the publishing houses with lots of interest but no commitments thus far.
Hope your summer is progressing well. More updates soon.
Labels: coffee, doping scandal, Pax Gaea, Project Rwanda, radio, Tour De France
posted by Dave Carroll @ 8/01/2007 09:45:00 AM
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